"Family Planning"??

12/29/2003

As for “family planning,” I betcha you’ll find as you pray through this at the Throne……… that both “camps” you mention above are “wrong” as is often the case. I say “wrong”—as in missing Jesus’ heart, while substituting some smorgasbord of selected religious ideas, chosen by snatching a verse or concept or two as a mantra to build a preferred, or inherited, life-style around.

Camp one says, ignore the laws of sowing and reaping (they SAY, “Let God decide”) and just have child after child. They give no honor to a LIVING GOD in doing this, and the other many ways Father may choose for us to function and “bear fruit.” The reality of it is, “the law of sowing and reaping” and the way Dad put us together says that “if a man and a woman are doing the things that lead to babies, they are very apt to have babies until someone’s machinery breaks, one way or another.” That’s (to any half-way discerning person) just how it works. And being “hyper-Spiritual” about it won’t change that.

Consider this. This is a fact, if a person is HONEST with themselves and God. A person who takes that “God will stop us from having babies when He’s ready” stance should also, by definition, leave their car running and unlocked with the doors and windows open while they are in the grocery store. After all, only “God” will allow their car and/or children to be stolen. The “law of sowing and reaping” isn’t in effect for them. “God decides” so they don’t need to concern themselves with the details. And, they should leave their doors and windows open at night if they live in a bad neighborhood, and while they are out of town, because their homes and children will be safe no matter what. “God will decide” and they have no responsibility for the matter, or any matter.

What’s the truth? THE “God will decide how many children we have” sub-culture WON’T DO THAT. Nor will they live in congruence with that “doctrine” with the other thousands of daily choices, such as sending their five-year-old child walking across a busy highway without looking (“God will take care of them!”). Therefore, they DON’T REALLY BELIEVE WHAT THEY SAY THEY DO: “God will decide the details of my life.” They have “selectively” chosen (dishonestly and illogically, or having bought into hyper-Spirituality from the plethora of “teachers” out there) to believe what they WANT to believe about childbirth. They have simply hidden behind the un-Spiritual and unBiblical claim that “God will decide.” In doing so, they can just continue to sow seed without any recognition of the laws Father has already put in place. They say, “GOD will stop the law of sowing and reaping from occurring” in THAT ONE AREA OF THEIR LIVES, but these teachers and adherents of this “doctrine” do not REALLY believe God acts that way in other areas of their lives. It is a “home school/ health food/ home birth/ Y2K/ etc. CULTURAL sin that you are encountering—not Christianity. “Fine-sounding arguments” aren’t always even very credible or convincing.

Now, before we speak of the Way God DOES function, I should address the “God gave you a brain” evil nonsense.

The fact is, what they are REALLY saying is, “You don’t REALLY, practically, need to be a slave of GOD. Instead, serve your idols of ‘quiet’ and ‘money’ and ‘leisure’ and ‘job’ and ‘peer pressure’ and ‘physical comfort’ and ‘fear’ and ‘pride’ and ‘greed’ and ‘logic’. God will understand. That’s why He gave you a brain: so you can serve your greed and fear and pride and other idolatries, and excuse it ‘logically’. You can justify having only 2.4 children—based on ‘wanting to give them the best’ and ‘wanting to use all the money for God that we saved by having fewer children’ and other (ludicrous, faithless, selfish, and worldly) reasons.” This is TERRIBLE, and “the day you eat from this tree, you shall surely die.”

Now, what IS the alternative? And, there IS one, I assure you! “The Lord alone decides” is actually RIGHT—but not in the way that disConnected folks mean when they use that “phrase”.

You’ll find more on this in the “Tree of Life” writings, and in “The Nature of the Miraculous”—but in short, “How many children does God want us to have?” is answered by HAVING A RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD! Wow—what a concept! : ) We ask HIM! And, use means for discerning (“the Spirit, the water of the Word, and the blood”) that HE has supplied His People! “Wisdom in the multitude of (GODLY) counselors” and “the pillar and foundation of truth is the EKKLESIA!” against which “the gates of Hell cannot prevail!” Faith comes by HEARING “every word that continually proceeds from the mouth of God” (greek). Faith is born in FELLOWSHIP with the Godhead, through the Son and amidst His Body. In this context, Heb. 3:12-14 (and Romans 12:1-2 as one reads the rest of Romans 12) say that relationships in His Body (“DAILY”) allow us to PURGE the sins that so easily beset and allow us to “See Him who is invisible” and relate to Him with “clean hands and a pure heart” “together with all the Saints.” GOD HAS A SPECIFIC THOUGHT FOR EACH PERSON AND FAMILY, based on the dynamics and Callings of their lives and His Purposes for THEM. Some adults that call themselves Christians aren’t fit to have ANY children, truth be known. They will only make them “twice the sons of hell that they are” I’m afraid. “Bad company corrupts good character” and they will only “cause the little one to stumble” since they will not be capable of taking the children somewhere they have never been—to Jesus. “Depart from Me, I never knew you,” the Master said to RELIGIOUS folks, as you recall. Some have the “machinery” to have children, but GOD would be much slower than human lusts would be…… to birth a child into the pretense and hypocrisy and foolishness of many “religious” families. But then, those would be the LAST ones to seek God’s Face, case-by-case, right? Hmmmm.

Father is VERY Creative in His Plans and Purposes for you, and for each of His Family. And He WANTS us to discover HIM in the midst of seeking His Mind, day to day, amongst His People, about ALL of the issues of Life. “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.” GOD does NOT “plan” for every person to have babies until their lives are at risk and the children can no longer be adequately nurtured and guided and raised. Why didn’t Jesus have 4000 apostles, instead of 12? Wouldn’t that have been more “efficient”? Being God and all, couldn’t HE have “raised 4000 children simultaneously” and effectively? Apparently, GOD believed that to explain to the crowds and then to turn to “those the FATHER has given” to explain and nurture and test…… is a Good thing. Those who know me would attest that no one loves babies more than I do! So, I only have an axe to grind with false religion when I say, “Having as many babies as possible” is NOT God’s idea, but man’s.

(Although, when the Church is REALLY the Church, there are “a HUNDRED mothers, brothers and sisters” involved intimately EVERY DAY in each person’s life. That certainly “covers a multitude of sins” in our mistakes and immaturities, praise God!)

Watch the terrible, tragic fruit, as we have for two decades, of those around the world who have embraced home school, health food, home birth, and all of the other things in that “granola culture” that only USES God as a logo, but does not seek or submit to Him with such choices…and when you see the majority of the fruit that is SO weak and diseased, you will know that JESUS has not built this “house”. (NOT to say, these “things” are “automatically wrong” either. We have MANY many MANY children here in the Church—like ALL of them—being educated at home, for example, and with wonderful Results. But, to many folks, home school/ health food/ blah blah is truly their “religion,” pathetic as that sounds. So much has been done in JESUS’ Name that has truly nothing more to do with Jesus than Christmas, Easter, and Halloween. It is a culture, and a lifestyle, and God could NEVER say to THEM, “Take, kill, and eat!” without them freaking out. Their “choices” and “opinions” and “preferences” ARE their God. That is “false religion.” Don’t get into that.)

It is SO much better to seek HIS FACE, HIS HEART, and HIS WILL on this matter and every matter! We are called, in our Jesus, to “do nothing we have not SEEN the Father currently doing”—just as our Firstborn Brother, and King has shown us and empowered us. God’s Way has always been to seek Him CASE-BY-CASE. This MAY actually even, sometimes, mean leaving the car intentionally unlocked and the engine running—while you are in the grocery store for an hour! When GOD Commanded the Israelites to leave their homes for SPECIFIC DAYS, at HIS specific Command, He promised to keep their homes safe. And He did. (Ex. 34:24) However, remember, too, of the many, many Biblical examples of Israel’s homes being savagely robbed and burned? Whatup?! Why the contradiction? Well, it’s like this: God PROMISED He would keep their homes safe when HE said to go to the Feasts of Israel in Jerusalem. It would have been quite presumptuous and foolish and rebellious to “assume” that God would allow them to leave their homes whenever THEY pleased, and that He would keep their homes and lands safe at THEIR bidding. God is not a magic genie in a bottle to be used to protect us and provide for us, at OUR discretion. He is GOD. And we are TOGETHER (that’s HIS Plan) to listen for and obey His CURRENT Thought on the practical matters of Life and life. In THAT, and that ALONE, there is Safety. Faith is born in FELLOWSHIP with Jesus, and His Body—not presumption and man’s hyper-Spiritual prideful and independent culture, or in his arrogant and self-serving or fearful logic.

Twenty-three children, or NONE, or four, or two? Shouldn’t that be GOD’S decision, day-by-day, case-by-case, if we are HIS? Rather than blaming HIM for our lusts and presumptions, or our fears? And, parenthetically, while killing a fertilized egg by means of “birth control”…is murder—and that is not an option, OBVIOUSLY. What a terrible thought. TERRIBLE. Of course. However, IF we are listening to God, there are other options.

Did you enjoy asking that question as much as I enjoyed answering it? : ) You trying to get a whole “movement” upset with me, or WHAT? : ) Those who love Jesus will know just what I mean. Some raise a banner and fly a flag OTHER than Jesus, and use “life-style” stuff and a fish bumper sticker to substitute for the Christianity Jesus spoke of in Luke 9:57-62 and 1Cor. 12. “Their folly shall be evident to all.” Those who know HIM, know there is an insidious counterfeit all around them, and they don’t like it either. So, you’ll find your true friends when you touch the idols of those who are not. “Take, kill, and eat!” May your Peace and Life be in Jesus, and all of the Fullness of this New Life He builds for those who love HIM with all of their hearts.

Love in Christ,